Elena Delle Donne , the 2015 MVP for the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, spoke with reporters in Rio while she and the U.S. Olympic Team were getting ready for battle in the 2016 Summer Olympics. Elena’s article is now up on Vogue . During the course of the time spent with the reporter, Elena announced that she was gay and was engaged to Amanda Clifton. Delle Donne went on to explain more about her announcement.
“It was just one of those articles where they came into my home, spent a couple days with me, and Amanda is a huge part of my life. So to leave her out wouldn’t have made any sense. It’s not a coming out article or anything. As the future keeps moving on, I don’t plan on having our relationship out in the public and all this media on it, but obviously there’s excitement right now because people see it for the first time.”
Elena Delle Donne received a lot of support for her engagement on Twitter.
Congrats on your engagement as well! – #WNBA star @De11eDonne publicly comes out in Vogue interview https://t.co/c01UDjAH7j @huffpostqueer
— It Gets Better (@ItGetsBetter) August 4, 2016
Congrats to @WNBA & @Olympics player @De11eDonne ! TY for showing #LGBTQ youth that they can live brighter futures! https://t.co/YtshW8BD9K
— The Trevor Project (@TrevorProject) August 4, 2016
“I’m not at all going to hide anything.”
Reigning WNBA MVP Elena Delle Donne reveals she is gay and engaged. https://t.co/VTDygyjc3P
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) August 4, 2016
Delle Donne and Clifton got engaged on June 2, 2015. Many of you may be wondering if this will have an impact in any way when Elena returns to the WNBA and the Chicago Sky. Elena addresses that with the reporter by stating that everyone close to her must have known. She states that her fiancee is not a stranger to her teammates on the Sky.
“They know Amanda. She’s always around. It’s nothing crazy.”
It did not take long for Elena’s family to realize that she was bound to do something special in the world. According to her parents, Delle Donne was exceptionally tall from a young age, and she began on the path to women’s basketball greatness at the young age of 10-years-old. Elena’s talent and skill are not lost on those in the NBA. Mark Tatum is the National Basketball Association deputy commissioner. He commented to Vogue about just how special she is.
“She is a once-in-a-generation type of player. She’s a Steph Curry.”
Putting Delle Donne in the same bracket as NBA superstar Steph Curry as far as her domination in the WNBA is one of the greatest compliments the female basketball star could possibly receive. The 26-year-old, six-foot-five leader of the women’s Team USA basketball team is confident that her team will bring home their seventh gold medal in a row. Her confidence does not imply that she believes that Team USA will run over the competition, though.
“There’s going to be some tough competition particularly from Australia, France, and Canada.”
One of the hottest topics of the 2016 Olympics is the Zika virus. Delle Donne states that “it will not stop me. I have been wanting to compete in the Olympics as long as I can remember.” Elena’s Olympic dream is not too far from coming to fruition. The women’s U.S. basketball team is poised to take the court on Senegal on August 7 at 10 a.m.
Delle Donne and the rest of Team USA has been placed in Group B. The other teams in Group B include Canada, China, Serbia, Senegal, and Spain. The schedule for women’s basketball for the 2016 Summer Olympics can be viewed here.
Do you think the news of Elena Delle Donne will impact how the women’s basketball team will do in Rio?
[Photo by Damian Dovarganes/AP Images]
